In depth and mini reviews of movies with a sprinkling of nostalgia and film music musings.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

The Devil Fish (1984) – MST3K Review

Summary:

In a plot that would be
ripped off by countless made for SyFy Channel movies the screen explodes with
Italians trying to be Floridians. It all starts with an old couple on a boat,
as they are devoured by something with sharp teeth and tentacles. After the
credits we meet Dr. Bob Hogan (Dino Conti) who drinks lots of beer and uses
microphones to listen to fish. But he ends up hearing something very different
from your typical clown fish. He gets so excited he spills his beer.

He compares notes with Dr.
Stella Dickens (Valentine Monnier) who hangs out with dolphins all day. It
turns out that just when he was recording his goofy sounds, the dolphins
freaked out. Because we need more characters, Stella visit’s her old pal Peter
(Michael Sopkiw) who is an expert at making electronic gizmos. With his help
they hope to find this rare fish and maybe even catch it. Little do they know
that this beast may be more than a simple living fossil, but an honest to
goodness Devil Fish.

Movie Review:

Also called Monster Shark, this little movie is
obviously inspired by Jaws. Granted
there were a lot of flicks after 1975 that revolved around folks devoured by
sea creatures. Heck Jaws had several
sequels that followed it up to 1987 with Jaws
the Revenge. Still this movie has more in common with Sharktopus than anything else.

The first thing you’ll
notice is that everyone is vaguely European and most of the cast is dubbed.
Next thing you’ll notice is that the film appears to be shot on location in
Florida. This makes for a bizarre experience of watching a bunch of imported actors
attempting to behave in a way that appears American. The result is that
everyone drinks a lot of beer and looks vaguely windswept. Going by this film,
my beer intake is bordering on un-American! Still not sure if the dubbing is
better than everyone having bizarre accents like in Werewolf, but it makes it differently goofy.

Speaking of goofy, the devilfish
itself is a pretty silly looking creature. Most of the time the camera doesn’t
get too close, so you can’t see much more than a vague shape in the cloudy
water. This could be used to a creepy advantage but director Lomberto Bava just
can’t manage it. Instead, you end up squinting at the screen trying to make out
just what he hell the devilfish is, a squid crossed with a piranha? Maybe a
stingray and a crocodile? Possibly a guppy and an oarfish. When you do get an
extreme close-up of the creature, it’s too close. You can see it obviously made
of foam and rubber and wouldn’t do more and annoy your skin with its silly
looking teeth.

But who cares about that! We
want to know if the movie has enough carnage and gals in bikinis to make it
worth our while, right? Well the carnage is on the light side. Some fishermen
get chomped on, there’s the old couple at the beginning and even a couple of
our heroes buy the farm. There is also a hulking murderer that is tied to a
subplot who kills a few folks too, and while he’s as ugly as the devilfish,
he’s not as interesting. Yes you do get some bikini action and a couple love
scenes, but since this a television edit of the film, don’t get too excited.

Maybe we can also blame the
television edit for the fact that the movie is hacked and slashed and stuck
together in the most random of ways. I haven’t seen such a set of abrupt edits
since the last time I watched Red Zone
Cuba. While Devil Fish never
gets as confusing as the Coleman Francis epic, it is still very jarring with
its cuts. Maybe it was an effort to keep the story moving, or maybe it was just
a lazy editor who knows.

The final result is a movie
that filled to the brim with elements that make it a ton of fun. So grab a few
American friends and lots of American beer, and sit on your American sofa and
make sure your American dubbers are hanging out nearby so you can do your own
American riffing (put an American flag somewhere nearby so everyone knows
you’re in America).

Or just have Mike and the
bots do the riffing for you. They’ve got plenty to work with.

Episode Review:

There’s a lot of killer
shark movies out there, even before SyFy Channel started making one a week. So
it’s a bit surprising that Mystery
Science Theater 3000 didn’t tackle on until its 9th season.
Maybe they were too bloody or had too much nudity, or maybe they just didn’t
find the right one. Well Devil Fish
was a perfect fit.

Most killer shark movies are
pretty much Jaws with more teens and
more skin. But Devil Fish has a bit
more going on, and it all adds up to a movie full of oddities. I mentioned Werewolf earlier and this movie has a
lot in common with that one. It’s just a mess, but the perfect mess for
riffing.

Most of the jokes are
leveled at the fact that the cast is trying way too hard to be American when
they are obviously not. But a lot of riffs also come in on the editing. One of
my favorites comes from Tom who says after a series of quick nonsensical edits,
“Its as if the editor is saying, you don’t need to concern yourself with any of
this.”

Dr. Bob is relentless in his
beer drinking and this offers up all kinds of alcohol related humor. His buddy
Peter is supposed to be some kind of brilliant lothario, but looks more like a
beach bum out for a good time. Mike and the bots make much of his reputation
and how it applies to all electricians, but also witness the horror of a badly
placed camera as Peter descends a ladder, and we get to see way to much of him.
A handy MST3K logo protects us viewers from seeing little Peter, but the boys
aren’t so lucky.

As for the gals in the
movie, the main focus is on how disturbingly skinny Dr. Stella is. Seriously,
she’s a bit on the scary side of skinny. She’s also almost attractive, but
there is something just off about her. And it’s not just the dubbing. There are
some great scenes with her and the dolphins at the beginning that provides
plenty of riffing fodder as the dolphins mock her mercilessly (with some help
from Mike and bots). My favorite character was the brainy Dr. Janet Bates
(Darla Warner) who actually seems to be the smartest person on the boat. She
actually does battle with the devilfish and survives! Too bad she is later
killed off screen by the annoying ugly faced thug. She would have been a much
more interesting character.

There are a few slow spots
here and there riff wise. This is mostly when the subplot involving the
government project and the ugly thug come up. When the devil fish is attacking
boats the jokes come fast and furious, and with the abrupt editing you never
know when a scene might end – makes things kind of exciting.

For host segments Pearl
tries to turn Castle Forrester into a cruise ship. It’s as bizarre as it
sounds. I did like Brain Guy attempting to be Isaac from the Love Boat, but mostly those scenes are
kinda limp. On the Satellite most of the skits are inspired by the movie. At
the first break, Mike and bots are not impressed by the dolphins in the movie
and start dissing them – the result is a huge Dolphin starship arriving to take
pot shots at our boys. They apologize. At the next break Mike and the bots are
not impressed by electrician Peter. So they start dissing an electrician that
Pearl sends up. Guess who ends up apologizing again.

The best segment occurs when
Pearl reveals that her passengers on the cruise ship are confused by Mike and
the bots. You see the passengers have been watching Devil Fish too and when Mike and the bots show up they just aren’t
Italian enough. So Pearl puts on a filter to make the crew of the SOL more
Italian. It goes horribly wrong and you have to see it to believe it.

This is a fun episode, not
top tier material, but still a good summer viewing, maybe with a double feature
of Jaws or one of its lesser
sequels. The movie is goofy and the riffing is solid.

I give it four cans of
AMERICAN beer out of five.

This episode is available on the Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume
XIX.

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About Me

I'm a writer who loves movies, books, video games and music. Wow, that's pretty generic eh? Been a staff writer for DVD Verdict.com and animeondvd.com. I worked at a video store for nearly 10 years. Still working on genre fiction both short and novel length.